Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method.
Description of the Related Art
An ink jet recording apparatus has an ink ejection orifice for ejecting an ink on a recording medium to form an image and can record a high-definition image at a high speed.
In recent years, utilization of an ink jet recording apparatus for commercial printing has also been widely investigated. In the ink jet recording apparatus for commercial printing, a pigment ink is generally used from the viewpoint of weather resistance of a printed article. At that time, such an ink is required to enable forming a good image even on a recording medium which does not have an ink receiving layer for fixing a pigment ink droplet impacted on a paper surface as in exclusive paper for ink jet, such as normal printing paper.
As a method for meeting the above required performance, there may be mentioned an image forming method in which a reaction liquid is applied on to a recording surface of a recording medium before the impact of an ink droplet to bring the ink droplet into contact with the reaction liquid applied, thereby causing aggregation of a component contained in an ink to fix the ink droplet on the recording medium. According to this image forming method, a good image from which image defects such as bleeding and beading are inhibited can be formed.
On the other hand, in the ink jet recording apparatus for commercial printing, it is attempted to provide such an added value that an image with photographic image quality is formed on normal printing paper. In order to achieve the photographic image quality in a printed article, high-price exclusive paper for photography is generally required. If the image with photographic image quality can be formed on cheap printing paper, however, such an added value that an image with photographic image quality can be formed at low cost can be given to the ink jet recording apparatus.
The photographic image quality is required to have a high gloss feeling and high gloss uniformity. On the exclusive paper for ink jet, the high gloss feeling and the high gloss uniformity are achieved by applying a transparent ink to an image formed with a pigment ink.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-181803 discloses a method for improving the gloss uniformity of an image by alleviating bumpy irregularities formed by impact dots of a pigment ink formed as a projected portion on a surface of a recording medium by applying a transparent liquid which contains a resin and does not contain a colorant thereto.
In addition, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-18127 discloses an ink jet recording method using a pigment ink and a coating liquid applied later, in which the hydrophilicity of a film forming resin particle contained in the coating liquid is made higher than the hydrophilicity of a film forming resin particle contained in the pigment ink. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2013-18127, a combination of such pigment ink and coating liquid accelerates the formation of a film by the coating liquid on the surface of a pigment contained in an ink film on a recording medium and also alleviates bumpy irregularities of the film itself by the coating liquid, thereby realizing the high gloss feeling and the high gloss uniformity.